[MANUSCRIPT]. REMY, Claude.
Traité des elemens présenté à M. Raoul de Choiseul-Gouffier.
Paris, 1786. Small 8vo. Calligraphic manuscript written in French in dark brown ink on paper, in a formal Latin script hand (a French-style "batard"), with an ornamental, calligraphic title-page in reddish brown, green, dark brown and black ink, each page in a thick-thin-thin border with circular decorations in each corner and centred at the head, running heads in the border, the heading of the "Avertissement" in a decorative script, and calligraphic chapter headings in circular or rectangular decorations and sub-headings in decorated horizontal bands. Contemporary red, gold-tooled morocco, the smooth spine divided into 6 panels (separated by lines flanked by dotted lines), the 2nd with a dark green title-label, each of the others with an 8-petalled flower, 10 dots, a decoration in each corner and another at each side, and a decorated band at the foot; each board with a border of thin-thick-thin fillets with a decoration stamped on each corner and a 6-petalled flower inside each corner; gold-tooled turn-ins, gold fillets on the board edges (altogether about 130 impressions of 13 tools), gilt edges. [2], 186, [4] pp.
€ 16,000
Beautiful calligraphic manuscript by Claude Remy, writing master and tutor of the children of the Paris beau monde for more than a decade before the French Revolution. The author-calligrapher notes in an epilogue that he had executed more than 60 similar instructive manuscripts, not only for his pupils but also for their parents, who greatly valued them, but few have survived. Remy executed it for and presented to Raoul de Choiseul-Gouffier, the young son of Gabriel Auguste, Comte de Choiseul-Gouffier (1752-1817), author of Voyage pittoresque en Grèce, who served as French ambassador to the Ottoman Empire from 1784 to the French Revolution, then fled to Russia in 1793 where he served Catharine the Great and her successors as Imperial Librarian and director of the Imperial Academy of Arts at Saint Petersburg. He returned to France in 1802, when the Treaty of Amiens brought temporary peace. Raoul became head of the Russian branch of the Knights of Malta and appears to have succeeded his father as count in 1817.
Remy's "avertissement" notes that he taught not only writing, but also reading, arithmetic, Latin, geography and several other subjects, but that he especially loved to teach the science of the four elements, the principal subject of the present manuscript. It clearly and methodically presents the traditional scientific ideas about air, fire, water and earth, including chapters on the properties of the elements, wind, hurricanes, the moon, the sun, heat, clouds, different climates, the tropics, the continents, the poles, oceans, bays, islands, rivers, floods, eclipses, the products of the earth, bodies, blood, senses, spirit, perspective and geography, even straying to topics such as the church, nobility, government, finances, commerce, artisans, wealth, poverty, education and the existence of God. The 6-page table of contents lists nearly a hundred topics covered. Two earlier Remy manuscripts of his Traité des quatre elémens are known, also executed for leading families in Paris.
With armorial bookplate. An occasional very minor spot and very slight browning, but otherwise in fine condition. Binding very slightly worn at the extremities but otherwise also fine. A fine calligraphic manuscript executed for the young son of a French count and ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. For Choiseul-Gouffier: S.H. Allen, Finding the walls of Troy (1999), pp. 41-44; A.F. Spada, Ephémérides Russes ..., vol. 2 (1816), pp. 221-222.
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